


An Endless World To Rediscover

by myrmidryad



Series: RNM Week [2]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Family, Family Reunions, Gen, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Pod Squad - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-12 10:13:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19944478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myrmidryad/pseuds/myrmidryad
Summary: Michael, eleven years old and back in Roswell, reunites with siblings he wasn't even sure he had.





	An Endless World To Rediscover

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: family.
> 
> Look, I'm a simple person who just desperately wants more pod squad love. Title sort of from Hey Brother by Avicii, but [this cover](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejQqfEbnvnM) is the one that gives me all the pod squad feels.

Michael was woken up at an ungodly hour of the morning of his first day at Roswell Middle School, ironically, to pray. Mr and Mrs Weeke had explained (via Lindsey, his constantly exhausted care worker) that they were a religious family when he was placed with them, and Lindsey had told him that this was the best chance he had at adoption.

So far, Michael wasn’t holding out hope. He’d given up on adoption a long time ago – he’d just wanted to get back to Roswell, and now that had happened, he was floating, waiting to see what would happen to him next. They’d gotten him registered at the local middle school, he’d been to their church twice already, he’d gotten in two fights with the oldest boy the Weekes were fostering and been made to kneel on the gravel patch in the back yard as punishment, which was reassuringly tame. He’d been there almost a week and so far neither adult had hit him, so that was a plus, but Andy, the second-oldest boy, had warned him that the punishments would get worse if he acted out.

“Like what?” Michael had asked, curious. “They beat you up?”

“Nah.” Andy scrubbed at his nose. “I mean, Mrs Weeke pushed me down the stairs once, but. Nah, more church stuff, mostly.”

“Doesn’t sound so bad.”

“The kid before you? They made him stay up for three days solid, no sleep, no food.” Andy grimaced. 

“Why?”

“He turned the crosses upside down.”

“That’s it?”

“They thought he was working for the Devil.” 

“Shit.”

Michael’s control was a little better, but he knew he’d have to be especially careful this time. The methheads and the drunk had often been so out of it that it hadn’t mattered when Michael lost his cool and things around him moved. The Weekes were teetotal in the extreme, and their eyes were sharp. Michael had already been harshly instructed on how to _properly_ mop a floor, and told that in the eyes of God, idle hands were a sin. Children honoured their parents with obedience, they said, and Michael had decided to be smart for once in his life and not pointed out that they weren’t his parents.

He wouldn’t fall asleep while they prayed. He’d seen Andy almost do that yesterday during the evening prayers, and Mr Weeke had dragged him upright by the hair and then shoved him to kneel over in the corner. He’d laid the big, heavy Bible on Andy’s outstretched arms and ordered him to hold it. Andy’s arms had started trembling just a few seconds in, and Michael and Trent, the oldest boy, had watched in silence as he finally let it drop, barely catching it before it hit the floor.

“No good,” Mrs Weeke had muttered, and Mr Weeke nodded his agreement, laying a hand on Andy’s head so gently that Michael had felt nausea curl through his empty stomach. Gentle touches only led to pain, he knew that, and so did Andy if the way he flinched was any indication.

No breakfast for Andy this morning. And he had to go to school in a set of dirty clothes that stank of BO so badly that Michael breathed through his mouth when he was made to stand next to him. They were all inspected before being turned out of the house for school, and he clenched his fists and recited his times tables in his head as Mrs Weeke ran her hands over his shoulders, checked his nails for dirt, and made him bare his teeth. She gripped his chin in her hand and when her thumb actually pressed against his lower lip, a photo frame rattled and fell off the wall behind her.

Michael left the house with a thumping heart, and sprinted to escape from Andy’s stink and Trent’s fists. He didn’t know the way to the school though, so he had to slow down and linger, waiting around a corner for them to pass. Trent was in high school, but Michael followed Andy to the middle school, keeping a good distance between them.

It was obvious, the closer they got. Groups of kids all walking together with their bright clothes and full backpacks. Michael hated them. All he had was a ratty backpack that had once been blue, but was more like a faded grey now. His sneakers had holes in the toes where the feet of the previous owner had grown too big for them, and his clothes were clean but ill-fitting. He looked like what he was – a loser. 

He felt weirdly sick too. He’d started a new school before, in Santa Fe, and it had been horrible there too. Being the new kid sucked, and it was worse when he was going to be the _weird_ new kid. The Weekes didn’t have a TV, they didn’t have a radio, they didn’t have the internet. He wasn’t allowed to go over other people’s houses or invite people back to theirs. He was basically a servant that they legally had to let out of the house for a few hours five days a week for educational purposes. If they’d had the time, they probably would’ve home-schooled them and he’d never have the chance to get outside.

He was a freak from a weird foster family with a foster brother who currently stank to high heaven, and if that wasn’t going to make him a target for bullies, his inability to shut up would.

His stomach was churning, the one slice of toast he’d been given for breakfast not nearly enough to fill him up. Trent had been given three – he was their favourite, because he parroted their bullshit and told tales about Andy and Michael, telling when Michael had cursed under his breath and telling them he’d been muttering in his sleep, as if that was a fucking crime.

His head felt weird too. Like a headache, but not painful. Just an odd sort of pressure at the back of his skull.

Was it them?

No. Michael didn’t even know if they were still in Roswell. He didn’t even know their names. He barely remembered the first group home, and if it hadn’t been for a newspaper clipping the Santa Fe drunk had shown him once, he wouldn’t have even been sure that he hadn’t been found alone.

The methheads told him he’d been dumped by a cult. The drunk told him he’d been dumped by child molesters. All Michael knew was that he could drink nail polish remover without dying and he could move things by looking at them, and it wasn’t exactly implausible to imagine that he’d been dumped by some perfectly normal people who had freaked out when they realised they had some sort of creature masquerading as their child.

Up ahead of him, Andy cringed as a group of girls pretended to retch as he passed. Michael hung back a little more, one hand tight on the fraying strap of his backpack. He’d been told to report to the receptionist when he arrived, but he didn’t know where reception was. Didn’t matter, he’d figure it out. He fell in behind a group of kids who were yelling about some TV show he’d never heard of, and pretended he wasn’t so tense he was almost vibrating as they turned a corner and a large single storey building with a red roof came into view. 

There was a low chain-link fence around the dry grass that surrounded it, and a bus filled with kids passed them slowly, belching fumes. It was noisy, and Michael tried to look at everything without making it obvious that he was new. He had to blend in, look normal. 

All the kids were flowing in streams and rivers around the side of the building, past what looked like the main entrance, and Michael hesitated.

The pressure at the back of his mind grew suddenly, so strong he touched his head and winced, and then stared as two kids appeared on the sidewalk ahead, walking against the tide. Towards him.

They both looked older than him, or at least taller. She had long blonde hair and a pink t-shirt; he had dark hair that flopped past his ears, both hands clutching the straps of his backpack. Both pale. Both well-dressed, in clean clothes and colourful sneakers. In his mind’s eye, he remembered them in darkness, naked. He remembered the girl holding his hand. He remembered huddling close to them, trying to hide in them, trying to hide them.

Them, them, them.

Michael staggered forwards, eyes wide, still uncertain. The girl’s mouth was open, and she rushed forward, closing the distance as the boy started to run as well. Michael moved like he was dreaming, limbs slow and heavy, and before he could say a word the girl flung her arms around him and burst into tears. Michael froze, reality flooding back in. Other kids were staring, stopping to look and whisper, a couple of them laughed, and Michael was a split second away from shoving the girl off and making a run for it when the boy came over and grabbed his arm, a wondering smile revealing wonky white teeth. 

“It’s you!”

It was them. Michael’s other arm came up slowly to wrap around the girl, a movement completely unfamiliar to him. “It’s you,” he echoed, staring at the boy. “You…we…”

The boy had tears in his eyes too, and Michael froze all over again as he tried to wrap his arms around both Michael and the girl at the same time. “You came back!”

As if Michael had been the one to leave. He felt a shaky smile creep across his face, something about both of them hugging him focusing his mind. Anyone looking at them didn’t matter – they’d found him. He’d come back, they’d come back, whichever way around it was. They’d found each other again, and Michael wasn’t alone.

It was enough to get him blinking quickly, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment and swallowing past a lump in his throat. He wasn’t alone. 

The girl pulled back and wiped at her face, starting to laugh through her sobs. “I knew you’d come back! I knew it, I knew you were close! I could feel it! Max, I told you!”

Max, the boy – Max, his name was Max – nodded, still staring at Michael like he was a miracle as he pulled back enough to look at him as well. “Where’ve you been?” he asked, his grip on Michael’s arm tightening. “Are you okay? Where did you go?”

“I…” Michael didn’t know what to say. His hand was still clenched in Isobel’s shirt, and his other hand came up to twist into the fabric of the boy’s as well. “When? What –”

“Max? Isobel?”

They all turned as a woman with a broad, brown face and short black hair came over slowly. “Is everything okay?” she asked, smiling at the same time as her eyebrows drew together. 

It wasn’t normal for kids to cry and hug each other at the beginning of the day, especially when one of them was a stranger. Michael knew this, but couldn’t think of anything but their names. Isobel. Isobel and Max. Max and Isobel. They had names, they were _real_ , he hadn’t just made them up.

His heart was beating wildly in his chest, and he felt like he could have run a mile. A hundred miles. He could grab hold of Max and Isobel and they could run away together, do it again but without crashing into any adults this time. They’d never be separated again, he would never let go of them, he’d rather die than be left alone again. His hands tightened in their shirts and he moved closer to them, Max’s hand warm on his arm. They wouldn’t let him go ever again.

“We’re okay.” Isobel sniffed and stood up straighter, wiping her eyes again. “He’s our brother.”

Michael stared at her, something completely unfamiliar unfolding in his chest. It made his breath stutter, and stop completely when Max nodded and grinned up at the teacher. _Our brother._ Michael had never been claimed as anyone’s family before, and he’d given up on even the possibility of it ever happening, but they’d called him their brother without a second thought, claimed him as _theirs_ , an extension of their bright faces and unscuffed sneakers. 

The teacher kept smiling and frowning at the same time, real life impossibly continuing even as Michael’s brain basically imploded. “I didn’t know you two had a brother?”

“We do.” Isobel stated it like fact, and stepped even closer to Michael. “He’s new. Can we show him where everything is?”

The teacher was going to say no, and Michael blurted out, “I need to go to reception, I’m new.” It was the right thing to say. He was good at pretending to be normal. Her frown melted away as she nodded. 

“You’re Michael Guerin?”

“Yeah. Uh, yes, ma’am.”

“Alright. I’ll take you in, and you guys go ahead to homeroom, okay?” She looked at Max and Isobel, who both looked dismayed. “Michael will be along soon, don’t worry, we just need to get him all set up on the system.”

“You’ll be in our class though, right?” Isobel turned to him with wide eyes. “You’re in sixth grade, aren’t you?”

He nodded. “Yeah, I.” He glanced up at the teacher. “I’ll see you later?”

The woman nodded and smiled encouragingly, and Michael forced himself to let go of them. Max and Isobel allowed themselves to be chivvied gently in the direction all the other kids were taking, and the teacher smiled again. “Okay, Michael. I’m Mrs Lopez, just follow me right in.” Michael had to tear his eyes away from Max and Isobel, terror seizing him and keeping him frozen in place for a second. What if they were gone when he came back? What if something went wrong and he was sent away again and he couldn’t find them?

“Michael.”

Mrs Lopez touched his shoulder, and Michael swallowed, making himself take one step, then another. 

It didn’t take long, in the end. He sat down with the receptionist, Mrs Aniola, and she took him to his class when they were done. He hadn’t asked whether he was with Max and Isobel. He didn’t even know their last name, and he didn’t want anyone to know they were important to him. 

But they were there, when Mrs Aniola pushed the door open. They both beamed at him, and he couldn’t help starting to smile back, though it faded when the teacher – Mr Molina – asked him to come up to the front so everyone could see him. “This is Michael Guerin,” he told the class. “He’s new, so I want everyone to make an effort to include him. Where’ve you come from, Michael?”

It would have been awful to answer in front of a class of unfamiliar faces. But Max and Isobel weren’t strangers. They were both smiling at him like he was the best thing that had happened to them all week. Maybe even all year.

So he cleared his throat and said, “Uh, Santa Fe.”

“I’m sure you’ll fit in great here in Roswell,” Mr Molina said cheerfully. “We’re all very friendly. Why don’t you go sit next to Jerry over there for now?”

A boy with thick brown hair waved half-heartedly, and Michael went to sit at the empty desk next to him. The wait until recess seemed to last forever. The second the bell rung, Max and Isobel were out of their seats, and Michael met them halfway across the class. “Come on,” Max said grabbing his arm again. “Outside.”

Michael would follow him anywhere. He would follow both of them wherever they wanted to go, as far as they liked for as long as they lived if it meant they wouldn’t leave him behind again.

They went outside to a line of trees between the sports field and the play field and sat down together, unable to stop staring at each other. “I thought you weren’t real,” Michael blurted out. “I thought I’d made you up or something.”

Isobel shook her head so hard her hair flew out and caught Max across the face, making him splutter. “I knew you were there,” she said confidently. “That’s my power. I have a superbrain.”

“Your power?”

“Yeah.” She looked eagerly at him. “What’s yours? Max can mess with electricity sometimes. What can you do? I know you can do something.”

“I…” He swallowed. “Can you show me?”

“Sure!” Isobel grabbed his hand, and Michael gasped as the sounds of shouting, screaming kids around them faded to silence, their surroundings glowing with light. Max vanished, and it was just him and Isobel, sitting in the patchy shade under the tree. “See?” She grinned at him, her front teeth a little big. “We’re in your head! And with normal people, I can like, tell them to do stuff and they do it.”

“Seriously?” The possibilities unspooled before him like gold. To be able to make someone not hit him, not punish him, to make them give him more food, better clothes –

“Sometimes.” She shrugged. “They have to actually want to do it, it’s kinda tricky. But anyway.” She let go of his hand, and the real world reappeared around them. “What’s your power?”

The way she didn’t doubt for a second that he had one was mind blowing, and Michael grinned. “Is anyone looking?”

“Don’t!” Max gasped, throwing his arms out. “Don’t do anything someone might see.”

“Max is super paranoid.” Isobel rolled her eyes. “We need to blend in.”

“I get it.” Michael nodded, catching Max’s eye and trying to show how seriously he was taking it. He’d do anything they wanted, anything. The wait for recess had reminded him of reality’s limitations. They’d called him their brother, but they could easily take it back. He had to make sure they never wanted to. “No one’s noticed yet, don’t worry. I won’t let anyone see. I can move things with my mind.”

Both of their jaws dropped on delighted gasps. “Cool!”

“That’s the coolest alien power,” Max breathed. “Man, I wish I could do that.”

_Alien._ Michael remembered three glowing egg-shaped things in a cave, but he’d never been sure if it was real. He didn’t want to ask, not wanting them to know how little he knew, but he had to. He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “You think that’s what we are? Aliens?”

“Duh.” Isobel grinned at him. “It’s _Roswell_ , isn’t it? And we came out of like, pods. Obviously we’re aliens.”

“No one can know,” Max added quickly. “They might take us away if they knew. They might split us up, and cut us open.”

Michael nodded. “I’ll never tell anyone, don’t worry. Is it…” He hesitated and looked between them. “Is it just you? There aren’t any others?”

“Just us.” Isobel’s smile faded. “Just us three.”

“So…what happened to you?” Michael asked, looking between them, suddenly worried. If Max was scared about being cut up, what had happened to them? “Are you with a foster family too? Are they okay?”

“Our parents,” Max nodded, and Isobel picked up the thread.

“We’re adopted. They adopted us in elementary school.”

“What’re they like?” Michael pressed. “Are they nice? Do they know? Do they hurt you?”

“They don’t know. They’re great.” Isobel stared at him in a way that let him know more than anything she could say that they were fine. If the very idea of their parents hurting them was strange to her, they were fine. Jealousy burned in his chest for an exquisitely painful second before Max frowned.

“Do your parents hurt you?”

They didn’t know. They couldn’t know. Michael shook his head. “I’m not adopted.” He shrugged, making out like it was no big deal. “You know Andy Ribera? I’m with his foster family right now. Probably won’t last.”

“What about Santa Fe?” Max blinked, eyes huge, and Michael shrugged again.

“Just some other foster parent. He didn’t want me anymore. Who cares?” He leaned forward. “I wouldn’t’ve come back here otherwise!”

“You can’t go again.” Isobel grabbed his wrist, freaked out. “You’re staying with this family, right? You won’t leave again?”

“No way!” Michael grinned. “I only just got here!”

“You have to stay.” Max said it so seriously, like he was passing a law. “You’re our brother.”

Michael swallowed around a lump in his throat. “Not really,” he said. “You’re both…I mean, you’re twins, I’m just, I’m a Guerin, not an Evans.”

“They’re just names.” Isobel rolled her eyes and let go of his wrist. “They’re not _real_. Obviously you’re our brother. Otherwise I wouldn’t’ve known you were coming back.”

“She’s been going crazy all week,” Max whispered, and Michael grinned deliriously at the way they were suddenly united, boys against girl, brothers against sister. 

“Well I was right, wasn’t I?” Isobel shoved him, and Michael laughed with her at Max, now united with her. Reunited with both.

He didn’t expect the Weekes to ask him how his first day had gone. He kept his head down and followed their rules, because he couldn’t risk being kicked out again. There was a residential home in Roswell, but he knew there was no guarantee there would be space for him there if he fucked up. Kids like him didn’t get a say in where they were sent, and he couldn’t risk being sent back to Albuquerque or Santa Fe or somewhere even further away. He needed to stay with Max and Isobel.

They couldn’t tell people they were real siblings, but that didn’t matter. Michael had expected school to be hell, like it had been in Santa Fe. He’d expected the other kids to pick on him for being poor and weird and shabby, but Max and Isobel were like armour against all of that. There was an odd number of kids in their class, so Michael always joined them as a three whenever they had to pair up for anything. They shared their lunches with him and hung out with him every single recess. They made a bridge between him and the other students. 

He’d gotten in fights before with kids who’d tried picking on him, but Max and Isobel never let that happen. Isobel kept the girls in line and Max threatened to tell on anyone who tried to start anything. Michael had allies, for the first time in his life, and they kept him safe.

It was worth putting up with the shit at the Weekes’, worth having to go to church several times a week, worth the shit food and the humiliating punishments. Whenever the awful, awful weekends were over, Max and Isobel would be there at school, waiting for him. He kept his temper in check, most of the time. He didn’t tell Max and Isobel what it was like, didn’t call it anything but the group home, didn’t even mention the Weekes by name. He even started to do well at school. Max and Isobel told him he was smart, and like magic, it became true. They’d been the ones helping him with his homework when he started, but by the end of the year, he was the one helping them, at least with anything involving numbers or science.

They folded him into their lives seamlessly. Everyone knew that Michael Guerin was best friends with the Evans twins. The Weekes wouldn’t have let him do things like stay over their house or go to their birthday party, even if Michael had been stupid enough to let them know there were people he cared about, but Max and Isobel knew the day they’d been found was May 18th, and they celebrated that as a joint birthday, just the three of them.

It was Michael who found their pods. For all that he’d said Michael had the coolest powers that first day at school, Max always wanted them to pretend to be completely normal, so Michael didn’t tell him or Isobel that when things were especially bad at the Weekes’, he would sneak out and head to the Foster Homestead Ranch. His memories had sharpened after reuniting with Max and Isobel, and he’d researched the 1947 crash. If anyone was ever coming for them – coming for him – they would surely go there first. It was alright for Max and Isobel, waiting on Earth with parents who loved them and took care of them. The stakes were higher for Michael. Now he knew for sure what they were, he worked hard to excel while blending in. When his real family came back for him, he wanted them to be proud of him. He wanted them to be pleased with him, to know he was worth coming back for.

The Weekes punished him if they caught his absences, but Michael didn’t care. And when he found the cave, it was worth it. He’d known it had to be there; he’d printed out a map and divided the area into squares, searching metre by metre. He’d checked dozens of caves by the time he found theirs, and because he was alone that first time, he let himself cry, just a little bit. More of a sniffle; he was out of practice with that sort of stuff by then.

He got himself locked in the basement on purpose that Sunday so he could sneak out and get Max and Isobel. He ignored Max’s hesitations and Isobel’s complaints about the cold as he marched them out of town, and lied when they asked him how he knew where he was going. He didn’t want to tell them how pathetic he was, searching the area so methodically. “I just knew.”

They forgot their questions when he showed them the pods. A glowing, hovering pod for each of them, neatly spaced, so beautiful that Michael still couldn’t quite believe he’d ever come out of one. Max and Isobel both got teary too, and insisted on a group hug, which he submitted to without even a token protest. They were the only people who had ever touched him gently without following it up with pain.

The pods were physical proof that they were from another world in a way that their powers weren’t. They’d had a real home, once. They didn’t belong on this dusty, unkind planet with people like the Weekes. As far as Michael knew, they were the only aliens on Earth; him, his brother, and his sister. One day, he promised himself, he would figure out a way to take them home. They had saved him, and he would save them. He would take them home, and they would leave Earth the way they’d arrived – together.

**Author's Note:**

> [Find me on tumblr!](http://myrmidryad.tumblr.com)


End file.
